In 16 years, Aaron Eckhart has appeared onscreen in roles ranging from a Neil LaBute sociopath and comic-book super-villain to Julia Roberts’s shaggy-haired sweetheart in Erin Brockovich. In Erased, an action thriller that opens today, he breaks from the former type to play a business-suited action hero. More specifically: a former C.I.A. agent who must save himself and his estranged teenage daughter once record of his existence is erased as part of an international conspiracy.

Last month, Eckhart dialed VF.com and told us about the making of his new film, why he thinks the best actors take breaks, and why he feels compelled to tweet.

Julie Miller: After seeing this movie, I don’t know what seems scarier: raising a teenager daughter or having your identity erased. How is it playing the dad to a teenage girl?

Aaron Eckhart: [Laughs.] That’s why I liked it! That’s what attracted me to the movie: [the idea of] getting to know your estranged daughter in a strange place, and then having to get to know each other under these crazy circumstances. I don’t have any children, but this idea that you can have children and have no idea who they are, and they don’t know who you are, appealed to me. To be in such close quarters in a strange place and worry about schoolwork and how she’s dressed and boyfriends. I thought that was a fun thing to play.

When you’re playing an estranged father, is it better to form a relationship with the actress playing your daughter before filming or . . .

Oh yeah. As soon as I meet an adolescent actor like that, I do my best to—well, first, to not make them hate me. And then to nurture that relationship and to create trust. If you think about it, you’re talking about a young woman who is surrounded by all of these men and adults and having to perform at a high level for 12 hours a day for months on end. It just takes an extraordinary person to be able to do that. And Liana [Liberato, who plays Eckhart’s character’s daughter] was a dream. Probably the best aspect of the movie.

You’ve done a few action films in the last few years, including Battle Los AngelesandOlympus Has Fallen. Was this a genre you were looking to get into?

Well, I grew up watching [Robert] Redford, Clint Eastwood,Rambo, Harrison Ford, and those types of movies. So I’ve always enjoyed those. I love reading spy novels. And I grew up in Europe, basically. I went to high school in England and lived in France and Switzerland. So that attracted me [to this film] too . . . being able to go back and shoot in the streets and in the train stations.

And as I get older, I like doing movies that the whole family can go and see. It’s more about just explosions—it’s about a father and daughter. I think we need to see those kinds of movies.

You mentioned high school in England. You spent the first part of your life in America, moved to Europe, and then you spent the last year of high school in Australia. How did that much moving inform or affect your becoming an actor?

Well, I was very into sports, ever since I was a little kid. When I was living in England, one day I was going to rugby practice and I saw a notice forCharlie Brown: The Doctor Is In—the play—and I thought, “O.K., I’ll go that way.” So I went left instead of right. And because nobody else auditioned, I [was cast as] Charlie Brown. And that was it. I found what I wanted to do in my life. I think I was 14 at the time.

And moving around that much, you have to make relationships fast. You’re alone a lot, too—in Australia, I was alone a lot. It’s hard to make friends. So you’d have to use your imagination. So that helped, and [being exposed to] all of those different cultures helped.

What area of the world feels like home to you now?

I live in L.A., but, you know, home to me is a hotel. In any city. I live the majority of the year in hotels.

When you spend that much time in hotels, what are your necessary amenities?

Just an outlet by the bed so that I can plug in my phone.

In Olympus Has Fallen, you played the president. What’s the secret to portraying a convincing world leader?

Well, really, because we’re so familiar with the presidency—and [my character] wasn’t based on any particular president—it was about what I thought were the qualities and characteristics of a good president. My No. 1 is honesty, and then integrity, courage, and being a good father and husband. So I kind of went inside of myself and thought about how to get those colors and flavors. Plus, it’s a non-political movie and it’s really not about the president. So what little they saw with the character, I wanted it to count and for the audience to feel like they could trust him.

Are you able to leave everything about your character on set at the end of the day?

No, I am less of that sort of actor. I try to live it as best I can. It’s easier that way. I feel like once I get into it, and it’s months on end, I sort of just stay in it. Which is problematic for my relationships [in real life]. But, like ,for this movie, I tried to take care of Liana and play that role, be in her life. For the fighting, I trained extremely hard for this movie with N.M.A. and jiu-jitsu. And when I am on set, I am constantly putting myself in situations that the character would and trying to make it real for myself. I don’t know if it’s a good thing or a bad thing, but that’s just the way that I work. Some people have different methods of acting, but that is the one that I prefer.

You look like a lead actor, but you’ve managed to find such interesting, varied character roles. How conscious of that balance are you when you are picking roles?

I’ve never been a careerist in that way—probably to the chagrin of my bank account. It’s more to me about “How can I push myself as an actor?” And if Nicole Kidman calls you up, you go to work. If Johnny Depp calls you up, you go to work. Is it your favorite character you’ve ever played in your life? Maybe, maybe not. But if quality people want to work with you, you go for it. That’s what my motto has always been.

Writers talk about getting writer’s block. Do actors, especially when they work as steadily as you have, ever get actor’s block?

Yeah. I mean, since Olympus, I haven’t worked in maybe eight months. Well, I haven’t been acting. I’ve been working on my own stuff as a producer. But yeah, I’m amazed that actors can go from movie to movie. Sometimes I can do it. But sometimes you need to take your foot off the gas and go live your life. But it depends on what you’re putting into movies. Sometimes movies aren’t that taxing for people. I think the great people that we really admire as actors aren’t making movies all of the time. They need to first do extensive research and preparation before a movie. And afterward they need to regenerate and recharge.

What kind of project are you producing?

I’m producing a movie based on a best-selling book. It’s kind of in the same genre as Erased. It’s about a father and something happens to his daughter—again, which is interesting—and he has to figure out how to get her.

Very Liam Neeson.

Hell yeah! It’s a character-based action movie. And it’s an unbelievable story, and we’re just finishing the script right now.

Would you play the lead? Is it another teenage daughter?

Oh yeah, I’ll star in it. For sure. And yes, but she’s in the beginning and the end of the movie. It’s mostly about who I meet along the way that I need to dispatch of.

So you’ve been producing and, I saw, tweeting a little bit. Do you like putting yourself out there in that way?

No. No, I do not. It’s foreign to me. I’m conflicted. I don’t know how to not make it personal. So I have to try to not make it personal. I do like reaching out to people, especially those who go see movies. But I don’t believe that the public should know too much about their actors. I think it distracts from the magic of movies. But, I don’t know. I was forced into it!

By whom?!

By society. I think I’ve accumulated 16 tweets. And I have about 77 followers. I think that’s a lot, so I’m very proud. [Ed. note: It’s more like 6,300 followers and 46 tweets.]